


not really soothing but soothing nonetheless

by crookedspoon



Series: Rounds of Kink [11]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Bloodplay, Depression, Face Slapping, Fingerfucking, Knifeplay, M/M, Masturbation, POV Ronan Lynch, POV Second Person, Rehabilitation, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 10:03:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12033636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: Working through some issues.





	not really soothing but soothing nonetheless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doctorkaitlyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/gifts).



> Written for the prompt "The Raven Cycle, Joseph Kavinsky/Ronan Lynch, "Hold still, asshole." Bloodplay, knifeplay" from rounds-of-kink [round 31](https://rounds-of-kink.livejournal.com/801155.html).
> 
> Trust me to turn what should have been a sexy kinkfic into yet another angstfest deluxe. Hooray! Also trust me the wrong fic for the wrong deadline. *facepalm*
> 
> Shoutout to [thegaywarenx](https://thegaywarenx.tumblr.com/) and [Neurotoxia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neurotoxia/) for giving this a once-over - you rock!

A bead of sweat is pearling on his back, running along the newest cut, saturating itself and sliding down his prominent ribs in a deep red line. The sheet below you already looks like you fucking murdered someone.

The knife is slippery in your hand, sweat is burning in your eyes, and your body feels hot, but you draw the blade across his skin again without fail.

He twitches and grinds his ass back against you.

"Hold fucking still, you asshole." But you grind back, so hard already you think you might pop a seam.

Miraculously, he does. His arms are trembling and his head dips, but he makes an effort to keep himself together. These days, it counts for something that you get him to listen.

He hasn't been well for the longest time, either drooping in some corner with a bottle of vodka in hand, or flipping out at you for the smallest of things. Claims he was able to regulate his mood before just fine and doesn't need some fucking doctor to prescribe him meds that aren't doing their goddamn job to stabilize him.

Maybe he doesn't have a concept of what stable means for him yet after having been fucked up for years, but you're not going to suggest that to him. You get enough shit from him already.

Instead of suggesting anything and fanning the flames, you'd simply confiscate his drink and take a swig. When he notices you're not about to give it back, his head would roll back against the wall and he'd peer at you accusingly with heavily glazed eyes.

Or, if he's less sloshed and more incensed, he'll tell you what's up:

"I'm fucking miserable, you fuckwit, and it's all your fault."

If it weren't for you, he'd be dead already, blah blah blah, Jesus fucking shit, get over it already.

You're tired of this.

You like it better when he's picking a fight. At least that is something you know. You let him come at you, stepping to the side whenever he lunges and sending him to the ground until he's spent himself. It's over in a matter of minutes, because even if he's eating about as much as he used to before (bird pickings so small that Chainsaw would probably starve from), he's no longer fuelled by drugs that cut through the fatigue. 

That's how you ended up here, with his knife in your hand, slicing him like so much meat: he drew it on you, snarling like a fucking beast. He was climbing up the fucking walls with the need to throw a party that would have him spiralling out of control again. You wanted to slam him against the wall and shake some sense into him. After all the steps he's made forward, he shouldn't be regressing like that. 

Not that shaking him would have done any good with that thick sense-resistent skull of his.

And how do you break old habits, anyway? How do you abstain from the very things that have defined you for so many years? It takes a major fucking break to change a person at a moment's notice – grief did that to you – the rest takes literal ages and more determination than either of you possess right now. He just wants to get fucked up, you just want him to cut it out.

Not cut you up.

He managed to get in a slash to your bicep before you wrestled him to the bed and pressed the tip of the blade against the soft underside of his chin. His teeth were bared, his eyes on fire, but the wildness was slowly seeping from him as if your weight was squeezing it out like grape juice.

"Need me to carve you up again?" you hissed. 

With a sharp inhale and a sharper gaze, he nodded and nicked himself.

You let up before he could impale himself and watched blood bead like a tick that was sucking its fill. You flicked it away with your thumb, leaving a faint red streak, and brought it to your lips.

He swallowed and his eyes were clouding over again as you disinfected the knife. His hands balled up the sheets beneath him. He was breathless and tense in his anticipation.

It's not the first time you've done this. The jar of scar cream he keeps in the bathroom is diminishing faster than it should.

"What's a few more?" he'd asked, tracing the shiny pink tissue on his chest, and that had been that.

His shoulder blades are twitching now, spots of bright blood welling up irregularly along the shallow cut beneath them, frazzling out onto his gleaming skin. You run your fingertips through it, dragging four red lines down his spine.

His hips buck again, and you're reminded of how painfully hard you are. But this is not about you.

This is about this suicidal little fucker finding a tether to this existence he hates so much. It's about giving him something in exchange for cleansing his system of whatever toxic shit he's been plying it with. It's not always easy, because half the time you're in this shit with him, unable to find the big answers.

He's still trying to fight you, at least a bit, when you throw him onto his back. You gotta hand it to him, he's feisty, even when he's depressed. But it's all just instinct, this resistance in him. He's not letting you through.

You straddle his thighs and plant your palm on his chest, pressing down lightly. His pulse is straining against you. His breath is, too. When you have his attention, as suggested by the tilt of his chin, the angle of his knees behind you, the fingers clawing into your elbows – you lose focus momentarily, awash with the desire to let him fuck you.

He notices your lapse and bares his teeth again. You catch yourself and pin him with a flat stare.

Then you backhand him with your left. It's not your strongest asset, as your trainer has been fond of pointing out for the last three years, but it leaves a satisfying sting on your hand and an even more satisfyingly dazed expression on Kavinsky.

When his gaze alights on you again, it's imbued with a wholly different sheen. He's awake now and willing to listen. Good.

You run the blade up his breastbone to his throat, the knife's edge winking at you. Kavinsky tips his head back, exposing his Adam's apple as though proud to display its growth, and exhales raggedly.

Then, with a fiendish grin, he wraps his hands around yours and guides it back down to his chest. He stops just to the left of his breastbone, a little above the thick, pale pink scar he wants gone so much.

The knife point indents his skin. "Fucking do it, you coward, I'm waiting," Kavinsky hisses through clenched teeth.

You huff, without amusement. "What's that gonna achieve? As if you're hiding anything here." You withdraw the knife and tap the handle against his chest, almost contemplatively. If you stab a heartless piece of shit where his heart ought to be, would he still die from the wound?

Reluctantly, his fingers slip away. Your pulse is rushing thickly through your veins and it's giving you a headache. You don't want to go over what he was just urging you to do. It's too close to what he was trying to do mere months ago, when you were both too raw to think beyond how to hurt the other.

These troubles don't plague him it seems, or if they do, he's using sex to forget about them, because his hips roll up against yours and his fingers skim down his front, rubbing off the blood that has coagulated on the cuts. In places, it oozes up anew.

"C'mon, we're not done here," he rasps and splays his hand over his chest, smearing it red. What a mess you've made of him. "Fucking let's play tic tac toe."

"Idiot," you grumble. The change of pace catches you on the wrong foot, although it shouldn't have. Kavinsky deals with shit by ignoring it and having sex instead. Not that you're dead-set against it, you just may have thought he'd given up on that particular coping mechanism along with the drugs. Then again, you had a stupidly utopian vision of what he'd be like once he's off all the shit he'd been popping and snorting, but his brain chemistry remains out of whack.

That's probably why he keeps complaining about his meds, about not finding the right ones and being sick of looking for them. Too much trial and error, and error with him could mean a violent decline.

You don't want to risk any such decline, so you comply with his request, at least partway. You drag the knife over his skin again, watching it split apart and slowly run red. Kavinsky sucks in a breath and jerks against you once more.

"Fucking be still," you say and when he is, you give him another cut over his abs. "Shithead," you add belatedly.

He's smiling widely, as if he's drunk on this, slides his palms through the mess again. He lifts them to your face and you're too dumbfounded to move. The red they're coated with is paint-like and sticky when he touches your cheek, when he runs his thumb over your bottom lip, and the tang of his blood fills your nostrils clearer than before. You don't care about the decoration, and by the time his hand slips down your neck to your chest, fingers flaring over your pecs and clavicle, you've swooped down to capture his lips.

For a while, you're distracted by his mouth sliding against yours, his tongue curling against yours, his body moving against yours.

Then he's pushing at your shoulders, trying to flip you onto your back, but you're as solid as granite if you want to be and no amount of shoving could get you off him. Besides, you're wary, you don't trust Kavinsky in this mood, and you're pretty much content to just let him snog you senseless.

It appears not to be enough for him. For one, he's using entirely too much teeth, for another, he's grabbing your hand and thrusting it down his pants. That's a rarity these days. Ever since returning from rehab, Kavinsky has freaked more often than not when you tried to touch him in a way that was not asking for a scuffle.

But now he's inviting it, he's guiding your fingers through his slick heat and urging you to crook them into him. He moans against your lips when you do, when you coat them in his wetness and ready them to venture further back. You're completely mesmerized by the timbre of his voice, so much so that you miss the elbow crashing into your face. Kavinsky, in his haste to push his jeans further down and angle his hips for you, seems not to notice either.

"Fuck."

You scrub your free hand over your face to dull some of the impact and for a second, you're surprised it comes off red, but then you remember it's Kavinsky's blood. His hand joins yours on your cheek and his thumb brushes the side of your nose. You think the moment's over and press a kiss to his blood-flecked palm, but keep your eyes trained on him, gauging his reaction.

He senses your hesitation, and bites his lip, glowering a little.

"Don't stop," he says and twitches his hips at you.

Under normal circumstances, it would be adorable how he's trying to boss you around, but right now, all you can think of is _yes_ and how beautifully he groans when you drag your knuckles inside him.

You pull his pants and underwear past his knees and reveal an angry red gash that was half-hidden by his waistband. You'd started carving your initials there, before you lost your nerve. It seemed preposterous to mark him as yours like that. You couldn't do it.

You flick your tongue over the cut now and tease his hole with your middle finger. His nails scratch over your buzzed scalp, and his head jams back into the pillow when your fingertip sinks in with only a hint of resistance.

With his hand clamped around the back of your neck, Kavinsky works his hips against you, works you deeper inside, and you watch it happen, you watch him stroke himself with his long fingers and fuck himself on yours. Your throat is parched from the desire that is pooling low within you, like a lake of tar, you barely have enough presence of mind left to rub against the edge of the mattress to find at least some relief. 

You press a second finger beside the first, and Kavinsky whines like the hiss of a steam engine, his grip on your neck crushing now, and his whole body starts quivering.

His thighs are stuttering, lifting him off the bed, demanding more than you are giving – or accepting what you do, always so hard to tell – and then he's shoving his wrist against his lips, trying and failing to keep his desperate moans inside.

His eyes roll back by the end, mouth falling open around a silent cry and body jerking like an electrocuted ferret. He's hypersensitive to every touch and when you kiss your way up his stomach and taste the barely-dried blood, carrying it on your lips to his, he's fucking giggling helplessly and twitching away from you.

You sink your tongue into his mouth, and it's searing like summer roads beneath bare feet. Slowly, he calms down, muscles melting beneath you.

Your lips are slick and your eyes unable to focus when you draw back, breath going almost as heavy as his.

He surprises you when he grabs your dick through your pants. You thought his limbs would still be rubber.

"Wanna fuck some more?" he drawls, grinning lazily, and runs the back of his free hand over the strands of dark hair that are sticking to his temples.

An exhausted laugh wrings itself from you as you lean your forehead against his. "Wanna patch you up," you say and press a kiss to his damp cheek, "put you to bed, and slide in next to you."

He expels an equally exhausted breath. "Gay." 

As if he'd waited for an answer like that, he dips his hands behind your waistband and doesn't let up until you come in your pants.

It just reminds you, once your head has regained some capacity for thought, that a wash is in order, too. Kavinsky looks like he's been slaughtered and you probably don't fare much better. The sheet beneath you can likely make its way into the trash already; you won't bother with the stains.

The main thing is that Kavinsky's smiling now, a quiet, blissful smile that may be gone tomorrow, or even in an hour, but it's there for now, proof that not everything is hopeless yet. For that, it was all worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "The Torn-Up Road" by Richard Siken.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'm currently stockpiling prompts for the winter, in case you'd like to send me one. (Post [here](http://crookedspoonfic.tumblr.com/post/164609128545/prompts-are-open), prompts tag [here](http://crookedspoonfic.tumblr.com/tagged/prompts). Feel free to leave your prompts in the comments if you don't have a tumblr. :D)
> 
> [Tumblr post](http://crookedspoonfic.tumblr.com/post/165197171540/title-not-really-soothing-but-soothing) for reblogging convenience.


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